The stretch of interstate between Greenville and the exit for the Beach Parkway is monotonous and even in the morning I need the radio to keep me alert. If you aren’t a country music fan, the pickings are slim, so I was happy that our old Honda has XM radio. Sometimes I listen to talk radio, especially those shows whose hosts I might disagree with. And that is how I found myself listening to Glenn Beck in late December.
There was a caller talking to Mr. Beck and for a while it seemed like a normal, almost boring conversation of a fan gushing over talking with his hero. But then the conversation turned serious. In short, the caller was agreeing with Mr. Beck that the Democratic leadership was not just wrong; they were evil. Now Glenn explained it this way – that most of the people who supported Democratic policies were not evil, they were dupes and that only a small percentage, the leadership, was evil.
If you were involved in a fight of good versus evil, what would you do to stop evil? Would you fight? Would you pick up arms? Would you kill?
Gabrielle Gifford’s assassination attempt may have happened whether or not the rhetoric from talk show hosts was heated or not, but casting your opposition as evil adds nothing to our national debate on issues and can set off a tragedy. To Mr. Beck’s credit, his web page today condemns, in no uncertain terms, all political violence. But when you cast your fight not as a disagreement of ideas and ideologies, but of good versus evil, what can result?
And then there’s Sarah Palin. By now, we all know that Ms. Palin put out a map with Rep. Gifford’s district in the crosshairs. Democrats have done similar things, so this is not just a Republican tactic. But to Ms. Palin’s discredit, her spokesperson, Rebecca Mansour, denied that the crosshairs were an allusion to a gun scope, but were instead “surveyors symbols”. Is there anyone out there so naïve as to believe that? Why can’t she just accept responsibility that it was a bad idea and move on.
No, we can’t know Jared Loughner’s intent and influences unless he tells us. But if the heated language, the threats, including threats of armed resistance, and the casting of opponents as evil adds nothing positive to the national debate, why utter the words?
I followed the article on the Sarah Palin "Gun Crosshairs" on Yahoo.com news The comments at the end of the article showed the mentality of a majority of gun owners and radical political pundents!
ReplyDeleteIt was amazing to see just how people think today! We have become a nation of non Christ believing whiners that think everything we want to be normal. When my parents taught me values, right and wrong (and I taught my kids the same rules) we condemmed homosexuality (it was sinful), abortions(killing of babies), killing of another human, good manners, and politeness!
Today these and many other things like owning a machine gun are the normal. Back then we did not have shootings in schools using automatic guns, we did not have mass killings by people possesing automatic guns and no-one thought of making a refference of killing in a terrorist fashion. Yet today you read about it daily!
THe NRA expounds extremist thoughts by touting Joe Blow, who killed his neighbor who kicked his dog by using an AK47 w/ a 30 round clip! The rifle he uses to hunt deer! Man that guy has to be a Pi** poor shot to need a 30 round clip to kill a deer!
In my days machine guns and automaitc pistols were outlawed. The only ones brave enough to own one of these were mobsters or cops and the cops usually won. WE need to go back to this mentality, not the present mentality of the NRA.
Oh I believe in gun ownership rights to some extent but some of these guns need once again to be made unlawfull! England has laws prohibiting citizens to own guns and their murder rate is much much lower than ours (yet they seemed to defend their country when at war)!
Whether Palin meant to send a terrorist message to kill all Democrats or not the terrorist message was there and picked up by many of the radicle factions of todays society. If this is the way this lady thinks we do not need her in any political office I can think of!